s-ladder of his.

"What's the matter, Ray?" said he. "Lord's sake, Ray!"

"Nothing," said I. Then I think I told him I was sick. That night I
wrote a letter to A.L. Peters, the grain-dealer in Duxbury, asking for a
job--even though it wouldn't go ashore for a couple of weeks, just the
writing of it made me feel better.

It's hard to tell you how those two weeks went by. I don't know why, but
I felt like hiding in a corner all the time. I had to come to meals, but
I didn't look at her, though, not once, unless it was by accident.
Fedderson thought I was still ailing and nagged me to death with advice
and so on. One thing I took care not to do, I can tell you, and that was
to knock on his door till I'd made certain he wasn't below in the
living-room--though I was tempted to.

Yes, sir; that's a queer thing, and I wouldn't tell you if I hadn't set
out to give you the truth. Night after night, stopping there on the
landing in that black pit, the air gone out of my lungs and the surf
drumming in my ears and sweat standing cold on my neck--and one hand
lifting up in the air--God forgive me, sir! Maybe I did wrong not to
look at her more, drooping about her work in her gingham apron, with her
hair stringing.

When the Inspector came off with the tender, that time, I told him I
was through. That's when he took the dislike to me, I guess, for he
looked at me kind of sneering and said, soft as I was, I'd have to put
up with it till next relief. And then, said he, there'd be a whole
house-cleaning at Seven Brothers, because he'd gotten Fedderson the
berth at Kingdom Come. And with that he slapped the old man on the back.

I wish you could have seen Fedderson, sir. He sat down on my cot as if
his knees had given 'way. Happy? You'd think he'd be happy, with all his
dreams come true. Yes, he was happy, beaming all over--for a minute.
Then, sir, he began to shrivel up. It was like seeing a man cut down in
his prime before your eyes. He began to wag his head.

"No," said he. "No, no; it's not for such as me. I'm good enough for
Seven Brothers, and that's all, Mr. Bayliss. That's all."

And for all the Inspector could say, that's what he stuck to. He'd
figured himself a martyr so many years, nursed that injustice like a
mother with her first-born, sir; and now in his old age, so to speak,
they weren't to rob him of it. Fedderson was going to wear out his life
in a second-class light, and folks would talk--that was his idea. I
h